Growers are mostly agreed that bulbs succeed infinitely better if taken up from the ground every year (though it does seem contrary to nature). It often happens that a bulb, if left in the ground, does admirably the first and second years, and sometimes a third year it does well, but after this period it usually catches some disease which turns into an epidemic, killing all the bulbs in its neighbourhood; it is too late then to find a remedy, and if lifted it will only rot on the shelves, as it would have done in the earth. One knows insects are more numerous one year than another, and thus they too may cause epidemics.
Lifting the bulb is also a method of preserving the young bulb, which otherwise would perish and decay from damp if left all the year round—or, as they are sometimes a foot or more below ground, the effort they make to force their shoots through that depth of earth is too much for them.
It has been observed that when the sap does not circulate freely in the bulb it is drawn up into the stem, and this is sometimes occasioned by overheating the room or green-house,—then it grows tall and weakly, the flowers are thin and deformed. The more the channels through which the sap runs into the stem are dilated by too much heat, the tighter they close again when the sap has finished its action, and the bulb becomes thinner than it should be, and it is exhausted for the next year’s growth and appears very languishing. One can see very well how this comes to pass when it is remembered that the next year’s flower is actually contained in the base of this year’s stem, therefore what weakens one weakens the other. If the bulb is very deep in the earth and the ground is hard, it cannot spread and enlarge itself with comfort, so the health of the bulb requires it to be lifted every year. Besides the necessity of separating and preserving the young bulbs which have to be replanted, there is yet another advantage to be gained in lifting, for then there is an opportunity of taking away decayed bulbs before the disease is able to spread further through contact with others.
Having given some ideas on the cultivation of hyacinths in general, perhaps it is as well to give in some detail an account of the particular (or individual) care and attention bestowed upon their bulbs by the Haarlem growers, and perhaps some hyacinth lovers may feel drawn to imitate their spirit. Haply if they meet with the same difficulties they may benefit by their experience and observations, and thus obstacles may be surmounted that stand in the way of the development of the ideal flower. These obstacles are often the result of soil, climate, and inexperience.
As a general rule, hyacinths require a light soil, which easily lets the water run through, but at the same time such a soil is soon washed out, and it thus in a short time loses its good qualities and richness. The sulphurous and oily qualities in the soil, that the hyacinth delights abundantly to suck out of the earth, would be washed away or evaporate speedily in such soil, even if the bulb itself did not actually exhaust the spot where it has grown, this is the chief reason why growers change their bulbs year by year. Damp is death to bulbs. In a damp soil bulbs can never be preserved for any length of time. The two general rules,—Choice of light soil, Avoidance of damp, are the very foundations of bulb culture. The “couches” or “beds” made by florists for their finest hyacinths are remade every year, they are also protected by caisses and layers of manure from the cold in winter, and they are shaded from the hot sun in spring by canvas awnings. The old soil (taken from the hyacinth beds) is carried to the garden borders, where other flowers are grown, such as tulips, lilies, Fritillaries, etc. The following year hyacinths are replaced in these borders, and succeed therein marvellously,—thus year by year the same earth bears alternately hyacinths and other flowers. If the reader’s patience is not exhausted entirely I must ask him to bear out a little longer, for I cannot without entering into very minute details give any intelligible idea of the qualities necessary to provide the sap with the kind of nourishment it seeks in the soil after the bulb is put into the ground.
In Haarlem they take two years to prepare the compost, or composed soil, which suits hyacinths so well. The first year a store of leaves are gathered together and laid in considerable heaps, so large that while they are rotting and becoming fit for use the sun cannot penetrate, for if they were spread about the sun would cause the salts and oils contained in the decayed leaves to evaporate, for this reason the heaps are not to be in places where they are exposed to the sun, nor in a damp place where water can sink in or stagnate. Growers do not gather in all kinds of leaves, they have observed that oak, chestnut, beech, and the leaves of the plane tree (which is now becoming common in Holland), and others of like nature, do not dissolve easily into earth; while the leaves of elm, wych-elm and birch, etc., are chosen because their loose and fibrous tissue dissolve more readily into soil.
In the same manner they lay up a heap of cow-manure, which is left to ferment en masse. Every country has its customs, and the Dutch customs make a real difference in the quality of the materials employed. All over Holland cows are kept in stalls from November to May only, and during this time they do not eat grass. All the summer they remain in the open, night and day, in the fields, so that manure is not kept or taken up in the summer months. In the winter, when the cows are fed on nothing but dry food, the manure is of quite another quality from the summer manure, when cows have grass. This may be useful to note for those who live in countries where manure is kept all the year round. Cows are tethered in stalls in so narrow a compass that one can hardly conceive how they can exist like this. They stand on a kind of platform between two trenches, before and behind them; in the front trench their food is put, which they can only get at by pushing their heads between boards, which also prevent them from reaching too far and pulling out the food, where it would be trampled under their feet. The second trench, which is deeper, is behind them to receive the manure, which is taken away and heaped up in a dry place, where it can easily drain and where the rain can also run off, for no water or wet is allowed to settle in or near the heap. As no straw whatever enters into the composition of this manure, it is not at all like the kind collected in other countries. I do not know if this is the reason, or why it is that in England, especially round London, hyacinth growers avoid using cow-manure as much as possible, the soil there being so stiff and rich that it suits them better to make it a little poorer, with an admixture of sand, than to heat it even with cow-manure, which is the lightest kind of manure there is. First a heap of leaf-manure, a second heap of cow-manure, and a third heap of sand is now made of sand brought from the dunes, or it can be dug out of the very ground beneath to the depth of some feet. Though all the soil about Haarlem and its neighbourhood is mainly sand, especially near the dunes, where most of the bulb fields are, yet they prefer to fetch sand from a distance rather than take any from the surface of their own ground. This sand should be as carefully examined as is the manure, so that, now that I think of it, I must enter into further details, which will be thought unnecessary by some people, but others will be glad to follow the spirit of our inquiry.
The nature of the soil in Holland proves that the country has undergone great geological changes, apart from the continual encroachments of the sea.
It seems that at a very distant period, perhaps before or after the Deluge, the country must have been covered over with forests, as were Germany and Gaul in later times.
Either in the great Deluge of Sacred Writ, or during one of the partial deluges that men of science speak of (but of which no one seems to have any positive knowledge), these trees must have been thrown down and laid on the ground in the direction of east to west, in such a manner that where they fell they form strata (or layers), which time has reduced to a thickness of six or eight inches at the most.